The Traitor Returns
by timeandcirque
Summary: When Desmond let Harkat and Kurda decide which of them should live, what if they had made a different choice? On top of having to adjust to life back in the present-Kurda Smahlt also has to face the harsh reality of what happened to the vampires and vampaneze in the time he was gone. Please R&R!


**Why ****hello there, people of the world of Fanfiction. i can't believe nobody's ever written a fic about this before, but no matter, they have now! XD**

**(they being me with a cup of tea :P)  
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**ENJOY!  
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Prologue

_...If Kurda chooses...he can walk away a free man now. He can live out the rest of his renewed life, however long or short that proves to be...or we can strike a new deal and Kurda can sacrifice himself...one of you can live-the other must bid farewell to life...i could make the call and just kill one of you, but wouldn't you rather decide for yourselves? _

But what a decision that was. Having to choose between returning to life, or returning to death. Having to choose between your two selves.

Kurda or Harkat.

The vampire traitor or the selfless Little Person.

For both choices, it was as if there was two outcomes. Four, altogether, that equally balanced each other, like the points on a compass, cancelling out the good points with the bad, making it so that either decision would have terrible consequences, but at the same time be more wonderful than the blonde vampire-still shaking from his lake terrors- could ever have dreamed.

If he returned to death, it would mean the end-he would cease to exist in the realms of the living-he could never go back. But would that really be such a bad thing? He would make peace with the world after so many years of turmoil and anger, and wasn't peace the very thing he was striving for? Paradise would surely give him that, just as Harkat would be given another shot at life.

Returning to life would mean a second chance, a chance to do good, to try so hard to redeem those misguided actions which had led him to the Lake of Souls in the first place. But it would also mean hatred from all angles, the shame and the despair of his brethren. He would have no place in the world, most likely. He was executed for a reason, because people felt he _needed_ to die, he _shouldn't _be alive after what he did. Of course, by people he meant _his _people, the vampires he had tried so hard to act as saviour for.

Trying. Kurda realised with a jolt that that was what he had been doing his entire life. _Trying _to help people, _trying_ to put his point across to the vampires, _trying_ to make a better world.

And of course-trying to forget all about his failures and misdeeds, whilst in that hellish pit of despair they called the Lake of Souls.

He wondered whether it was time to stop trying, to take the easy route to eternal happiness he had been offered. Harkat could take the reins, he could live for the both of them. Harkat could live, and he would die. He had made up his mind. But he needed to be sure.

"What do you reckon, Darren?" he asked the boy prince, the one who exposed Kurda for what he really was, but yet the one who's honest opinion Kurda would take on board, whatever it was. "Should I grant Harkat life or set his soul free?"

It was Harkat who replied however, who made up Kurda's mind for him.

Funny, really, how someone who was essentially the same person as you could give you advice that you had failed to give yourself.

"Darren has nothing to do...with this. Much of my memory-your...memory-is returning. A lot is clear now. I know you the same way I know myself. You always went your own way...even to the point of betraying your people...when you thought it was for their best. Be the man in death...that you were in life. Decide for yourself."

And with that final sentence, Kurda Smahlt realised what he had to do. He couldn't give up now, that wasn't who he was.

He had to persevere, to be the man he used to be.

And for that, there was no question about it, he had to live.

Kurda turned to Mr Tiny, and uttered the words that Desmond had known all along Kurda would say.

"Despite all of the consequences, all of the hurdles that will face me and the challenges that may befall me-_I want to live._"

**What dyou reckon? **

**i feel reviewing is a most thrilling pastime at this present time. It is very...uh...noble? XD  
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**LIKE DONNA! (sorry, doctor who obsession got the better of me :L)  
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